Social Media: How to Better Communicate During the COVID-19 Crisis

While everyone has excess time at home during COVID-19, social media consumption rates are dramatically increasing. This is an optimal time to leverage your business’ social media profiles to reach customers. However, during these uncertain and sensitive times, it is crucial for companies to take the right approach to utilizing their social media platforms.

How to Utilize Social Media Effectively During COVID-19

Acknowledge the pandemic: It’s important not to go on social media posting like its business as usual. Everyone is impacted by the pandemic and companies must acknowledge that these are not normal times. Ignoring it altogether will make your company look insensitive and out of touch. Having a “we are in this together” mentality will make your followers feel more connected to your company.

Provide relevant, valuable, and accurate information: Many businesses are struggling. Your company should provide information that is helpful and valuable to your customers during these tough times. Any way you can help get your customers through this will ensure you still have customers when things return to normal. There is also a lot of false information being spread through social media right now. Be sure not to contribute to the spread of misinformation by always double checking the accuracy of the content you share.

Keep customers updated on impacts to your business: If your business operations are impacted by the pandemic, make sure you’re keeping your customers updated so they know of the changes and how to get in touch with you if they have questions. Transparency is critical during this time of uncertainty.

Mix in regular content: There’s an abundance of information on social media about COVID-19. While it’s important to post relevant news about the pandemic, don’t limit yourself to posting only this type of content. Find a mix of content that makes sense for your target audience, referencing the pandemic but keeping up with your normal content.

Show your business’ response to COVID: Every company is responding to the pandemic’s impacts in its own way. Give your customers insight into what your company is doing internally. Whether you’re having virtual employee happy hours, hosting fundraisers in response to the pandemic, or making updates to your business operations, people want to see what others are doing during these times – especially if it’s positive and fun.

What Are Some Things Your Company Should Avoid?

Not shifting your social strategy: As mentioned above, don’t pretend it’s business as usual on social media. Times are tough and it’s important to communicate your business’ response to the pandemic. Tweak your social strategy to fit in COVID-related content.

Insensitive tone or content: Be thoughtful in your wording and recognize that these are challenging times for all. Ensure the content you’re posting isn’t insensitive to what is happening around the world and makes sense to post during a global pandemic. Put yourself in your follower’s shoes and think about how you’d perceive these posts.

Being overly promotional: Although it’s important to still promote your business on social media now, you don’t want to be overly sales-y. Create a mix of content that’s informative, promotional, and COVID-related to help keep your customers interested and up-to-date.

Although there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, it doesn’t mean you need to abandon your business’ original social media strategy. Making tweaks to it so the content of your posts fit within the current situation will help to humanize your company, provide your followers with valuable information, and keep you top-of-mind on social media during this time of crisis and beyond.